The archived blog of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

May 17, 2010

Ethics Pledge Should Help Put Some Distance Between Regulators and Industry

As Congress and the White House consider reforms to the U.S. Minerals
Management Service (MMS) in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill
disaster, it's worth acknowledging that the executive branch has already
taken one important step towards curbing one of the most troubling
problems at the agency, the issue of the revolving door.

On January 21, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order
requiring appointees to sign a list of ethics commitments, including a commitment not to
lobby any executive branch officials for the remainder of the
Administration. Since the early 2000s, several presidential appointees
in the Department of the Interior, which houses the MMS, have joined the
ranks of the industry they oversaw. J. Steven Griles, former Deputy
Secretary, and William Gerry Myers III, the former solicitor, went
on to become industry lobbyists. More recently, the previous two
directors of the MMS were hired as successive presidents for an industry trade group. And last but certainly not least,
former Interior Secretary Gale Norton was hired as general counsel for Royal Dutch Shell
PLC. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is now investigating whether Norton
illegally used her to position to help secure the award of three
lucrative oil shale leases to a Shell subsidiary.

The Obama
ethics pledge
represents a step towards tackling this problem, and helps ensure that
former officials don't use their careers as civil servants to amplify
the will of special interests in public policy. As POGO Executive
Director Danielle Brian recently
noted on The Rachel Maddow Show, requiring this
ethics pledge may be one of the most important actions taken by the
Obama Administration.